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Page 15
Yet the evil influence of climate, mischievous as it is at present, is
not to be looked upon and acquiesced in as an irrevocable fatality. At
first sight it would seem as if the human race could not possibly
escape the malevolent action of cosmical influences over which it has
little or no control. The rise and fall of temperature, its rage and
intensity, is one of these influences, and yet its pernicious offsets
are capable of being held to a large extent in check. As far as bodily
comfort is concerned, it is marvellous to consider the innumerable
methods and devices the progressive races of mankind have invented to
protect themselves against the hostility of the elements by which they
are surrounded. In fact, an important part of the history of the race
consists in the ceaseless efforts it has been making to improve upon
and perfect these methods and devices. We have only to compare the
rude hut of the savage with the modern dwelling of the civilised man
in order to see to what extent we can shield ourselves from the
elemental forces in the midst of which we have to live. We have only
to mark the difference between the miserable and scanty garments of
the natives of Terra del Fuego and the attire of the Englishman of
to-day to see what can be done by man in the way of rescuing himself
from the inclemencies of Nature. If these conquests can be achieved
where our physical existence is in peril, there can be little reason
to doubt that advances of a similar nature can be made in the moral
order as soon as man comes to feel equally conscious of their
necessity. As a matter of fact, in some quarters of the world these
advances have already in some measure been made. In the vast peninsula
of India the structure of society is so constituted that the evil
effect of climate in producing crimes of blood has been marvellously
neutralised. It hardly admits of dispute that the caste system on
which Indian society is based is, on the whole, one of the most
wonderful instruments for the prevention of crimes of violence the
world has ever seen. The average temperature of the Indian peninsula
is about thirty degrees higher than the average temperature of the
British Isles, and if there were no counteracting forces at work,
crimes of violence in India should be much more numerous than they are
with us. But the counteracting forces acting upon Indian society are
of such immense potency that the malign influences of climate are very
nearly annihilated as far as the crimes we are now discussing are
concerned; and India stands to-day in the proud position of being more
free from crimes against the person than the most highly civilised
countries of Europe. In proof of this fact we have only to look at the
official documents annually issued respecting the condition of British
India. According to the returns contained in the Statistical Abstract
relating to British India and the Parliamentary paper exhibiting its
moral and material progress, the number of murders reported to the
police of India is smaller than the number reported in any European
State. The Indian Government issue no statistics, so far as I am
aware, of the numbers tried; it is, therefore, impossible to institute
any comparison between Europe and India upon this important point. But
when we come to the number convicted it is again found that India
presents a lower percentage of convictions for murder than is to be
met with among any other people. It may, however, be urged that the
statistical records respecting Indian crime are not so carefully kept
as the statistics of a like character relating to England and the
Continent. Sir John Strachey assures us that this is not the case; he
says that these statistics are as carefully collected and tabulated in
India as they are at home, and we may accept them as worthy of the
utmost confidence. The following table, which I have prepared from the
official documents already mentioned, may, therefore, be taken as
giving an accurate account of the condition of India between 1882-6,
as far as the most serious of all crimes is concerned. In order to
facilitate comparison I have drawn it up as far as possible on the
same lines as the other tables in this chapter.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
|Population |Years.| Cases of Homicide.
| over Ten. | | Reported. Convicted.
| -----------------------------------------
| | |Annual |Per |Annual |Per
| | |Average.|100,000 |Average.|100,000
| | | |Inhabitants.| |Inhabitants.
India|148,543,223|1882-6| 1,930 | 1.31 | 690 | .46
---------------------------------------------------------------------
According to this table, the remarkable fact is established that the
number of cases of homicide in India committed by persons over ten
years of age and reported to the police is smaller per 100,000
inhabitants than the number of cases of the same nature brought up for
trial in England. In order to appreciate the full importance of this
difference it has to be remembered that in England a great number of
cases of homicide are reported to the police, for which no one is
apprehended or brought to trial. In the case of the notorious
Whitechapel murders which horrified the country a year or two ago no
one was ever brought to trial, hardly any one was arrested or
seriously suspected. These crimes and many others like them materially
augment the number of homicides reported to the police, but they never
figure among the cases annually brought for trial before assizes. As a
matter of fact, no one is ever tried in more than one half of the
cases of homicide reported to the police in the course of the year. In
the year 1888, for instance, 403 cases of homicide were reported to
the police in England and Wales; but in connection with all these
cases only 196 persons were committed for trial. In short, double the
number of homicides are committed as compared with the number of
persons tried; and if a comparison is established between India and
England on the basis of homicides reported to the police, the outcome
of such a comparison will be to show that there are annually more than
twice as many murders committed per one hundred thousand inhabitants
over the age of ten in England than there are in India.
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